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Tulum ~ A Book Review

David Seth Micheal’s Tulum is a read that draws you in, grinning to yourself at the sweet honesty of the workings of the author’s mind.  I found myself reading ever quicker as the story unfolded, not wanting to break the spell, not wanting my own reality to dare interrupt my foray into Tulum’s magical hold.  Yet, I neared the end, I slowed, savoring, not wanting it to end.

Set in isolated and beautiful Quintana Roo, Mexico’s villages, Tulum is a journey of an un-average man in a relatively unspoiled place. It is pure Mexico, from the quirky inhabitants, to the arbitrary rules of the dog-police, to the bribes and communal sharing by its Mayan residents. His seedy past has drawn him to its isolation, a place to dream and write, yet circumstances entwine him, and suddenly his life changes drastically. You learn everything evolves, from the onslaught of touristas, to a “retired” man’s new vocation.  

The world of Tulum paints beautiful pictures of both the mystical and mundane parts of human existence, through the ever-suprising and imaginative voice of the narrator.  Its a journey of utter honesty, from manly desires for a beautiful woman, to the temptation of profits in the seedy underworld of drug traffickers, to a spiritual journey with an unlikely and bemused mentor.

A little bit Hunter S. Thompson, a little reminiscent of Castenada, but entirely unique, Micheal’s storytelling found me rapt in his story, and longing for the next installment. The writing was fresh and guileless, totally self-aware to both the glories and follies of the human mind; whether a lizard basking in the sun, or a wizard drinking tequila.

You will be amused.  You will be intrigued.  Mostly?  You will fall in love with Tulum.  

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Intuitechnology – Global Lovevibes.

“Why of all the people on the globe to light me up like that, does it have to be a crazy person?” I asked Linda a couple weeks ago, laughing my ass off. “I mean really, only two people in my life have been able to do that.  Now this?”

She didn’t miss a beat, “Ummm, Diane, like either of your Mike’s were actually sane?” sarcasm and irony dripping off her good-natured words.

Before I could draw a breath to make a smartass reply? It hit me. She nailed me, it, totally.  I literally did the face-palm and said, “Well,” the full exhale made the second word a whisper, “shit.”  Then laughed even harder.

I had been explaining to her how it worked for me, that slam-rush when someone thought of you, that psychic connection that sounds like so much utter tripe to a normal person.

I did it just now, you see. (11~something am) Was surfing you tube, and chatting away on 2 pages on FB, when WHAM it hit me, I looked up and decided to hit the site meter of another site right EXACTLY as the lost-Mike (not the Dead-Mike, obviously) hit the page.  This time, he didn’t read me. Another night?  I had written the time down on my wrist to prove a point to her while playing yahtzee at her house.  We came back here, and lo and behold – the EXACT time he had read me.  Not useful at all.  I normally totally ignore it, other than to make a point that I really CAN do it.  I mean, he is as gone as the dead one from my life, so why hasn’t that tie ended?

Its of no use to me at all, then, this so-called gift.  I mean, what the fuck, universe or evolved other-70% of my brain that apparently I get the joys of using? My kindreds have never been sane.  Or perhaps I am not.  Or perhaps alike’s really do attract, worse, connect, and neither/all of us are not quite sane.  I have NO idea.  All I know, is that all of them and I have fought like cats and dogs, at least part of the time.  And that I love them fiercely whether or not we could stand being around one another in the long run. It is to laugh, right?

But I didn’t come to talk about that, this is the result of another thread talking about technology.  I want to talk about a thought-provoking comment by David Williams on Journey with RoundTree7’s FB page…..

It began with me defending books over Kindles and Nook’s… and ended up with me thinking about string theory and human connectivity.

 Fractal Geometry String Theory Image

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WWL Radio #140 Handwringers, Hedges and OWS



Listen to Diane Gee live on WWL Radio Friday, February 10th at 6pm ET!



Listen live by clicking the link icon below:

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PhotobucketHolding out Hope still?  President McHope just bent over for the Religinazis, and while thus positioned, gave a reach around to the Bankers on foreclosures while deepthroating the Super Pacs.  

Still think that Electoral Politics mean a damned thing?

The time to Occupy is now more than ever.  It is far past time to remove the sham of Freedom and have a People’s Revolution – perhaps a Jeffersonian Revolution ala a Bolivarian one.

Then we have poor misguided Chris Hedges wringing his hands so hard he broke his Rosary over a broken window while applauding Greek Riots.  Puhhhlleeeez.  

Plenty to rant about tonight, my friends.  I’m ready to roll!

The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation!

Tip: In order to comment in the show’s companion chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds. Chat is monitored during the show, so make yourself heard.

Miss the show? The podcasts are available at the link above, or at the Wild Wild Left

Join Wild Wild Left Radio every Friday at 6pm ET, with Hostess and Producer Diane Gee to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective….  



WWL Radio: Bringing you controversial, cutting edge, revolutionary, “out there where the buses don’t run” LEFT perspective since January of 2009!

Perspectives On Hedge’s “Cancer in Occupy”

There’s one thing they tell you when you start a cancer treatment schedule, sitting there in wide-eyed horror and shock. “I know this all seems unthinkable right now, but believe it or not, it will soon just become your routine.  Your new normal.”  Anyone who has lived through childhood abuse, or been in an abusive relationship will tell you the same. “Well, most of the time he was nice,” they will say, “its just sometimes it got really scary or bad.”  There has been reams written about co-dependent behaviours already, both personal and societal.  Me?  I think mostly its a matter of acclimation. Its the conversation you have about TV on your way to chemo, and the new meals that become routine; creating food the cancer-stricken might possibly eat.  It kids playing soccer among the rubble where the bombs just fell. It learning your new wheel chair. Or learning to read in Braille.  I say it a lot.  “It is what it is.

Photobucket There’s a flip side to this too. As my husbands 6’1″ frame dwindled to 130 or less pounds, as his hair fell out?  He avoided mirrors like the plague.  Its like the restaurant you no longer frequent because its where your ex-girlfriend and her new man hang out.  Its like changing the channel every time that commercial comes on, with Sara McLoughlin singing and all the abused animals cover your screen.  Its refusing to look at the reality of what homelessness, starvation, or what the ravages of War truly are.  Its the pictures of children struck by depleted uranium you never really look at for long. Put even more basically?  Its blocking someone on Facebook who has been cruel to you. You compartmentalize the bad away, and let normalcy be created by routine – and you  just avoid the damned mirrors.

You see?  Mirrors tell the truth.  Mirrors belie the little boxes in our psyche that say everything is normal. So we veil them.

I like Chris Hedges.  He is what he is. I’m not even remotely insulted he used the cancer analogy as a fresh cancer widow.  

What I find particularly offensive after giving it a night of thought?  Is Hedged opining how a few kids in black pajamas breaking a window has become an unthinkable Cancer to bringing the Public Sway on board to the “treatment” that Occupy is trying to apply to the REAL CANCERS of our Society.  The Cancers that have become both our “normal” and our “mirror avoidance.”

if you can’t laugh with me….

(Disclaimer:  This is a hilarious story, but eating while reading it is not suggested.  Strongly suggested. Heh 🙂

Photobucket… feel free to laugh at me.  I do.  All the time.

So far? 2012 hasn’t been sterling or anything. I mean, I did discover I had a heart again for a moment which is a good thing.  Then I discovered shortly thereafter it could be broken.  I had forgotten that part too. Even Goddesses have to relearn caution, humans can be mean things, even stalking things. EWWW! Enough about that.

So, today I turned 49.  Didn’t see my shadow or anything; the reflection in the mirror of the morning face was quite enough. Yeah, I could crawl back in bed for 6 more weeks, but that would require a store of batteries I can’t quite afford. LOL.

But I didn’t come here to talk about that.  I came to talk about my Birthday Eve, the closing moments of my life as a 48 year old.

Its a funny story.  Click through, you need the laugh, you know you do.

Oppression & Brutality from Sea to Shining Sea



What good a revolution, have you no fixed plan for what comes next?

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Be careful what you wish for….

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Things aren’t that bad. The devil you know may be better than the devil you get…


Things are that bad.  Things are unimaginably bad, had people the ability to connect dots so obvious a kindergartener with a crayon could complete the picture and probably sound out “Fascism” before the MSM could possibly do it.  

I dreamed, long ago in gentler days of a 100th monkey moment of enlightenment.  I prayed that humanity would evolve.  I beseech-ed those who would listen that unless we did something then, that things were turning dire. I think even if my moderating forces were still around me? My radicalization is the result of facts on the ground.

Revolution is now coming whether or not you like it, dear readers. Everything is about to change so visibly that like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot, people will wonder why their world is burning around them, and wonder how we let it get so far.

The new normal may soon look something like this:  



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America! America! Lets bring Freedom to Thee!

Labor’s Worth or Pura Vida?

Where does it come from, this self-reaffirming need to do have done something “productive”?

You all feel it, that feeling when you look back at something you have done well, we call it satisfaction, we call it a sense of pride. There is something to be said about the adage, “Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well,” but so often it only applies to what we call work.  What of that mouthful of food you are chewing?  Do you feel the texture, let the flavors dance upon your palate, be fully in the moment of appreciating the act of eating it?  Living fully aware is close to impossible.  We are not conditioned to be that way.

Even Marx argued that labor is central to a human being’s self-conception and sense of well-being.  Even as revolutionary as his thinking was at the time, that humans are alienated from their own humanity by not being “owners” of their own units of labor, and the products of their labors; he still comes from a decidedly Western standpoint.

I get it.  I’m Polish.  The Germanic tradition of hard work was instilled into me with my Mother’s milk, a generation removed from that land and into the relative safety of the 60’s.  It is, after all, a fairly hostile climate; and utterly necessary to over-produce and store to survive the harsh Winters.  That self-preserving tribal urge cannot be reduced easily even with the layers of technology that eased the fear of immediate death by an ill-prepared village.  Sure, now we can “work” and procure from a better gatherer/storer and survive;  but that measure of worth being work is still just a primal reactionary response.



Is it truly our measure of worth?

Better question:  SHOULD it be?

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WWL Radio #138 Norm Finkelstein Interview



Listen to Diane Gee with Honored Guest Norman Finkelstein live on WWL Radio Friday, January 20th at 6pm ET!



Listen live by clicking the link icon below:

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PhotobucketNorman G. Finkelstein is an author and lecturer living in Brooklyn.  He received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. For many years he taught political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

He is currently working on a new book entitled KNOWING TOO MUCH: Why the American Jewish love affair with Israel is coming to an end.  

Norm is a fiery speaker, pulls no punches and is an endless advocate for moving the factions of the Right back to the ideals of the Left: Peace and Human Dignity for All.  I cannot wait to speak with him!

The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation!

Tip: In order to comment in the show’s companion chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds. Chat is monitored during the show, so make yourself heard.

Miss the show? The podcasts are available at the link above, or at the Wild Wild Left

Join Wild Wild Left Radio every Friday at 6pm ET, with Hostess and Producer Diane Gee to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective….  



WWL Radio: Bringing you controversial, cutting edge, revolutionary, “out there where the buses don’t run” LEFT perspective since January of 2009!

WWL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST SOPA/PIPA

(in solidarity!!)

PhotobucketIn solidarity with the thousands of bloggers, twitters and internet groups standing silent in protest against the impending vote Tuesday on SOPA, I am asking for not one keystroke to be entered on this blog from Midnight tonight (Tuesday) until midnight Tomorrow Night.

24 HOURS OF TOTAL BLACKOUT, PLEASE!

I am asking the same of our FB group.

Better Silent for one day, than risk silenced forever.

Sometimes?  Speaking is complicity!

Thank you,

Diane

WWL Radio #137 Stupid White Folk Epidemic



Listen to Diane Gee with special co-host David Peery live on WWL Radio Friday, January 13th at 6pm ET!



Listen live by clicking the link icon below:

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PhotobucketA blond housewife and a black lawyer walk into a bar on MLK day… who knows what will happen? Truth and laughter served up faster than a speed-of-light beer, thats for sure!

David Peery is brilliant, funny and spot-on Politically.  As the silly-season erupts into full fetid bloom, with the foremost players ringing bigoted bells for the Pavlovian Knuckledraggers; we are going to try and counter the insanity with a fresh dose of realism and rationale.

We have Arizona banning Ethnic Studies, we have man-on-dog Santorum, we have Paul wanting to revoke Civil Rights Legislation and we have a Nation turning on its own People in fear and loathing rather than face the obvious:  The Problem is Endemic Class War.

The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation!

Tip: In order to comment in the show’s companion chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds. Chat is monitored during the show, so make yourself heard.

Miss the show? The podcasts are available at the link above, or at the Wild Wild Left

Join Wild Wild Left Radio every Friday at 6pm ET, with Hostess and Producer Diane Gee to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective….  



WWL Radio: Bringing you controversial, cutting edge, revolutionary, “out there where the buses don’t run” LEFT perspective since January of 2009!

OpEds – Sharks and Shadows: A Crossroad.

A Reply to “OpEds-The Lion and the Ox: The Winter of Our Discontent” by Gary Steven Corseri

Gary, my dear, you can turn a phrase.  This was priceless: “The possibility of war with Iran is a warmonger’s wet-dream now-and the sheets are gross and soggy.”

I am shamed such talent has gone to waste, such obvious intellect has been coopted by the human need for a saviour, and the human ability to delude itself.  Much like your disappointment in President Hopey-McChangey, you have not the ears to hear.

For while some of us were duped by his rhetoric, others among us reminded us that he was candidly a centrist – that he wanted increased War in Afghanistan (the right war) and that he intended to “reach across the aisle” (read reach-around) to those who sponsored his campaign. The right.

Here you are, a grown man, tapping your heels, saying, “there’s no place like home,” and clapping your hands and saying, “I do believe in faeries,” for yet another candidate whose record is clearly illiberal and equally dangerous, Ron Paul.

Yet, I believe you know in your heart of hearts, that this is so many marionettes dancing on a cave wall.  



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WWL Radio #136 US Views from Abroad – and A Broad



Listen to Diane Gee with special co-host Eric Knight live on WWL Radio Friday, January 6th at 6pm ET!



Listen live by clicking the link icon below:

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PhotobucketTonight, Eric Knight – British citizen and regular of the Links for the Wildy Left facebook page affiliated with this show and blog –  joins me as honorary co-host to address Occupy, Class War, the Police State and the Idiocy of our mutual “exceptionalism” in foreign affairs.

Eric is a scathing wit, brilliant man and all around great conversation.  He has worked in publishing and marketing, been active in the Human Rights and Justice Campaign, is a drummer who has run with the rockers, hobnobbed with the Princess of Wales and Maggie Thatcher, and supports the reintroduction of the guillotine for both of our War Criminals. He is on his way to Pakistan as an NGO diplomat working in an advisory position on education, and to promote diplomacy between their two countries, a trip for which he has agreed to be our foreign correspondent.

It will be refreshing to see our own Kabuki from a very sympathetic to the “people” man, who shares our absolute disgust with the events occurring around us.

The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation!

Tip: In order to comment in the show’s companion chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds. Chat is monitored during the show, so make yourself heard.

Miss the show? The podcasts are available at the link above, or at the Wild Wild Left

Join Wild Wild Left Radio every Friday at 6pm ET, with Hostess and Producer Diane Gee to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective….  



WWL Radio: Bringing you controversial, cutting edge, revolutionary, “out there where the buses don’t run” LEFT perspective since January of 2009!


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